A Review of: “A Limbo of Shards”

The following interview began as a family conversation over the Christmas holidays in 1987 at the home of Jane and Joseph (Jo) Wheelwright on the Hollister Ranch in Santa Barbara County, California. Betty, the Wheelwrights' daughter-in-law and a writer and teacher, was curious about their thoughts on gender differences. With the tape recorder running, they agreed to answer some questions.

The Wheelwrights both worked personally with C. G. Jung and have been Jungian analysts for 50 years. They, with others, founded the C. G. Jung Institute of San Fmncisco in 1943. Dr. Joseph Wheelwright is Emeritus Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco and a former faculty member of the University of California in Berkeley. He has published about 50 articles in various psychological journals in the US. and abroad. Jane Hollister Wheelwright has written about gender issues in Women and Men (San Francisco Jung Institute, 1978) and in For Women Growing Older: The Animus (C. G. Jung Educational Center of Houston, Texas, 1984). She grew up in the wilderness, an experience that has influenced many of her preceptions.     

At home with himself: John Beebe at 65

John Beebe was born in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Chicago Medical School. He has maintained his private practice of psychiatry in San Rancisco since 1971, and he became a Jungian analyst in 1978. In 2002 he completed a two-year term as President of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. He is the founding editor of The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal, the co-editor of Psychiatric Treatment: Crisis, Clinic, and Consultation, and editor of Money, Food, Drink, Fashion, and Analytic Raining (Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Analytical Psychology) and C. G. Jung's Aspects of the Masculine. He is the author of Integrity in Depth and has recently edited the proceedings of the 2002 North American Conference of Jungian Analysts and Candidates, Terror, Violence, and the Impulse to Destroy: Perspectives from Analytical Psychology, which he helped to organize. I first met John in his cozy office on a peaceful winter afternoon in San Francisco not long after he had turned sixt, y, and we continued to correspond over the ensuing years to produce this interview.     

Jungian analysis: An elder's perspective

Dr. Joseph L. Henderson has the richest and longest history of any analyst who trained with Jung. He is in his 97th year, in excellent health and spirit, and continues to practice daily. He was in Zürich in the 1930s when Jung was developing many of his theories in the seminars Henderson attended. Henderson trained and analyzed with Jung, although he worked with other analysts as well. He received his medical training in London. Jung asked Henderson to write a chapter in Man and His Symbols, and he has been writing ever since. He is the author of Thresholds of Initiation and other books related to Jungian psychology. After World War II, along with the late Joseph Wheelwright, Elizabeth Whitney, Jane Wheelwright, and other analysts, he co-founded the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, one of two Jungian centers in the U.S. at that time. He continues to work with candidates in training to become analysts, and to help research organizations such as the Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS)     

Group process in Jungian analytic training and institute life

Group process experience for analytic candidates is a neglected dimension of training, and receives little attention in the analytic literature. Jung observed group dynamics, but he never studied them closely, attending instead to the psychology of the individual. Unconscious currents in small groups have been studied by others, most notably by Wilfred Bion, and there are similarities between his theories of the group unconscious and Jung's theories of complexes. Experiential and didactic seminars in group process were added to the analytic curriculum at the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco in the early 1990s, leading to changes in the group dynamic of trainees and analysts alike. A discussion of the theories of Bion and Jung are followed by a report on our experiences of facilitating group process for analytic candidates. We give quotes from candidates and analyst members to illustrate the group process and its effects. The need for further study to develop a uniquely Jungian perspective on the unconscious structure and dynamics of the group is suggested.     

Journal Reviews

B ritten , S. (London). 'Children first.' Criminal Justice
J oseph , S. M. (San Francisco). 'Fetish, sign and symbol through the looking-glass: a Jungian critique of Jacques Lacan's Ecrits'. San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal
L edermann , R. (Brighton). 'Narcissistic disorder: ajungian view of the etiology and treatment'. Brit.J. Psychotherapy
S amuels , A. (London). 'Countertransference, the mundus imaginalis, and a research project'. Jahrboek van de interdisciplinaire vereniging voor analytische psychologie
S amuels , A. (London). 'Oltre il principio femminile: un punto di vista post-junghiano' (Beyond the feminine principle: a post-Jungian point of view). L'Immaginale
S amuels , A. (London). 'Sesso, genere e psiche: un punto di vista postjunghiano' (Sex, gender and psyche: a post-Jungian point of view), in Presenza ed eredità culturale di C. G. Jung
S idoli , M. (London). 'The myth of Cain and Abel and its roots in infancy'. British Journal of Psychotherapy
S idoli , M. (London). 'Vergogna e ombra' (Shame and the shadow). Rivista di psicologia analitica
S iegelman , E llen Y. (Los Angeles). 'The Tower as Artifact and Symbol in Jung and Yeats'. Psychological Perspectives
S teinberg , W arren . 'Idealisation: A Clinical Discrimination. Quadrant     

John Beebe in conversation with Beverley Zabriskie

John Beebe speaks with Beverley Zabriskie about the central motifs of his life and depth psychological experience, and how these informed his choice of vocation as psychiatrist, Jungian analyst, educator and author. Dr. Beebe narrates how he moved beyond the fate assigned the son of a needy mother and abandoning father. He illustrates how the role his family expected him to fill constellated archetypal motifs--the magical or divine curative child, the whiz kid--from which he had then to disidentify for the sake of becoming an individual with a personal voice and capacity to express his own true values. He tells of his differentiation and search for completion through the perspective of Jung's psychological types theory. He also reflects on the evolution of Jungian analytic theory and practice generally, his editorship of the JAP and the San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal, his confrontation with analytic homophobia, and the emerging quality of professional and personal relationships in relation to ethics and to love. He assesses Jung's courage and integrity as displayed through the release of Jung's Red Book, and his own quest for an organic and psychological moral stance expressed in his benchmark book, Integrity in Depth.     

Journal Reviews

[Authors are invited to submit for review articles published in professional journals on subjects likely to be of interest to readers of the Journal of Analytical Psychology. Chapters or secrtions of books may also be sent provided the book has not been submitted to our Book Review section.] Beebe , J. (San Francisco). ‘The trickster in the arts’ Gordon -Montagnon , R. (London). ‘Jung: fils rebelle ou prophete?’ Gordon -Montagnon , R. (London). ‘Desire and woman: a Jungian approach.’ Gordon -Montagnon , R. (London). ‘Tentative d'anatomie d'un concept: le soi.’ Salzmann , M. (Paris). ‘Divin Corbeau. Approche d'un my the sibérien’ Samuels , A. (London). ‘Gender and psyche: developments in analytical psychology’     

BOOK REVIEW

Transforming Public Policy: Dynamics of Policy Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Nancy C. Roberts and Paula J. King, ISBN 0–7879–0202–0. San Francisco: Jossey‐Bass, 1996. 280 pages, $28.95

Jungian Archetypes: Jung, Goedel, and the History of Archetypes, Robin Robertson, Nicolas‐Hays, York Beach, Maine, 1995

Sociopolitics: Political Development in Postmodern Societies, Paris Arnopoulos, Guernica Editions Inc., Toronto/New York, 1995, paper; pp. 321, index, bibliography; $20.00 Canadian, $18.00 US     

Journal Reviews

D avidson , R. H. & D ay , R. 'Symbol and realization: a contribution to the study of magic and healing.'
D reifuss , G. (Haifa): 'The significance of the shofar in the rite of the Jewish high holidays'
E ngel , W. (New York): 'Psychotherapeutic prophylaxis in a changing world'
F ordham , M. (London): 'Reflection on child analysis read at the Rome conference "Jung e la cultura europea"'
F ordham , M. (London): Jungian view of the body-mind relationship
F ordham , M. (London): ' Simbolismo nella prima e seconda infanria (Symbolism in infancy)'
H enderson , J. L. & W heelwright , J. B. (San Francisco): American handbook Of psychiatry
H enderson , J. L. (San Francixo): 'The picture method in Jungian psychotherapy'
L ambert , K. (London): 'The problem of authority in the early development of the individual'
L ambert , K. (London): 'Facilitating elements in analysis'
McC ully , R. S. (Charleston, South Carolina): 'Tantric imagery and Rorschach perception'
McC ully , R. S. (Charleston, South Carolina): Separatdruck aus Rorschachiana X
M arshak , M. D. (London): 'Art education in relation to psychic and mental functioning'
P ontius , A. A. (New York): 'Neuro-ethics of "Walking" in the newborn'
P ontius , A. A. (New York): 'Maori art and pseudo-hypoparathyroidism—a medical contribution to prehistoric anthropology'
P ontius , A. A. (New York): 'Basis for a neurological test of frontal lobe system functioning up to adolescence. A form analysis of action expressed in narratives'
P ye , F. (London). 'Feminine images of success'
W heelwright , J. (San Francisco): 'Psychological types'
W allace , E. (New York): 'Conventional boundaries or protective temenos'
W illiams , M. (London): 'Transcience and eternity'     

A personal commentary on J.W. Perry,M.D., and introduction to ‘Reconstitutive process in the psychopathology of the Self’

John Weir Perry’s influence on the understanding of the psychotic process through his research in San Francisco between 1950 and 1981 was groundbreaking, because it both verified and expanded upon C.G. Jung’s research at the Burghölzli Hospital in Switzerland in the early 1900’s. The author explores both the brilliance of Perry’s contribution as a psychiatrist and Jungian analyst and also shows the flawed human, who, with his rare sensitivity to the psychotic process, devoted his life work to the schizophrenic population and their often ill-fated search for meaning. She tells how his creative engagement with the analytic processes of Self discovery eventually led to analytic boundary violations, which ultimately resulted in his indefinite suspension from membership in his local Jungian community. Further, this paper describes her reflections on the innovative work that influenced both the treatment of this population, as well as educating candidates in analytical training to be receptive to and cognizant of psychotic affects and imagery. The archetypal field of the psychotic process, its influence on the development of analytical psychology relative to the psychotic process, and one man’s impact on the analytic community are considered.     

“Jung Has Always Seemed Like an Old Friend”: An Encounter with Claire Dunne

This article provides an account of a visit with the author of a very popular Jungian book, Carl Jung: Wounded Healer of the Soul, in which the interviewer relates his conversation with Claire Dunne about her relationship with Jung and how she got involved in Jungian psychology. She also discusses the workshops she has done around the world and the fascinating dreams she has had of Jung.     

Jung and Gnosticism

Carl Jung interprets Gnosticism the way he interprets alchemy: as a hoary counterpart to his analytical psychology. As interpreted by Jung, Gnostic myths describe a seemingly outward, if also inward, process which is in fact an entirely inward, psychological one. The Gnostic progression from sheer bodily existence to the rediscovery of the immaterial spark trapped in the body and the reunion of that spark with the immaterial godhead symbolize the Jungian progression from sheer ego consciousness to the rediscovery of the unconscious within the mind and the integration of the ego with the unconscious to forge the self. For Jung, Gnostics are the ancient counterpart to present-day Jungian patients. Both constitute a psychological elite. Where most persons are satisfied with traditional means of connecting themselves to their unconscious, Gnostics and Jungians are sensi tive to the demise of those means and are seeking new ones. Where, alternatively, most other persons are oblivious to the existence of the unconscious altogether, Gnostics and Jungians are preoccupied with it. Gnostics project their unconscious onto the cosmos and are therefore striving to connect themselves to something external, not just, like Jungians, to something internal. Interpreting in Jungian terms the Gnostic myth Poimandres, I argue that Jungian psychology makes enormous sense of the myth, but not in the way that Jung envisions. Upon rediscovering his spark, the Gnostic seeks to reject his body altogether rather than to mesh the two. He does strive to reunite with the godhead, but the godhead is immateriality itself rather than, like the body, matter. Indeed, the godhead, taken psychologically, is only a projection of the unconscious onto the cosmos, so that the unconscious is thereby reuniting with itself. The Gnostic's uncompromising rejection of the body and, more, of the whole material world therefore symbolizes not, as Jung assumes, the Jungian ideal of wholeness but the Jungian nemesis of inflation or, worse, psychosis. I suggest that Jung misconstrues Gnosticism because he parallels it to alchemy, which does fit the Jungian ideal.     

Jung and Gnosticism

Carl Jung interprets Gnosticism the way he interprets alchemy: as a hoary counterpart to his analytical psychology. As interpreted by Jung, Gnostic myths describe a seemingly outward, if also inward, process which is in fact an entirely inward, psychological one. The Gnostic progression from sheer bodily existence to the rediscovery of the immaterial spark trapped in the body and the reunion of that spark with the immaterial godhead symbolize the Jungian progression from sheer ego consciousness to the rediscovery of the unconscious within the mind and the integration of the ego with the unconscious to forge the self. For Jung, Gnostics are the ancient counterpart to present-day Jungian patients. Both constitute a psychological elite. Where most persons are satisfied with traditional means of connecting themselves to their unconscious, Gnostics and Jungians are sensi tive to the demise of those means and are seeking new ones. Where, alternatively, most other persons are oblivious to the existence of the unconscious altogether, Gnostics and Jungians are preoccupied with it. Gnostics project their unconscious onto the cosmos and are therefore striving to connect themselves to something external, not just, like Jungians, to something internal. Interpreting in Jungian terms the Gnostic myth Poimandres, I argue that Jungian psychology makes enormous sense of the myth, but not in the way that Jung envisions. Upon rediscovering his spark, the Gnostic seeks to reject his body altogether rather than to mesh the two. He does strive to reunite with the godhead, but the godhead is immateriality itself rather than, like the body, matter. Indeed, the godhead, taken psychologically, is only a projection of the unconscious onto the cosmos, so that the unconscious is thereby reuniting with itself. The Gnostic's uncompromising rejection of the body and, more, of the whole material world therefore symbolizes not, as Jung assumes, the Jungian ideal of wholeness but the Jungian nemesis of inflation or, worse, psychosis. I suggest that Jung misconstrues Gnosticism because he parallels it to alchemy, which does fit the Jungian ideal.     

Jung in the academy: a response to David Tacey

It is argued that responsibility for academia's disdain for Jungian psychology needs to be accepted by the Jungian community to the extent that it remains unrelated to contemporary literature, academic concerns and modes of enquiry in the social sciences. Several illustrative examples are presented. Of special concern is that the most powerful marketing of the name of Jung comes from American publishing companies that produce New Age Jungian pop, which is, even in Jungian terms, theoretically weak and further damages the academic standing of Jung. Reasons for the relatively good standing of Jungian psychology in South Africa are discussed. Special mention is made of the contributions of Vera Buhrman and several other academics. It is argued, however, that the academic criticisms of Buhrman's cross-cultural writing have merit. In the current intellectual climate in South Africa, Jung's cultural essentialism is anachronistic, and to endorse it will be to forfeit credibility in South African academic circles. In contrast to Tacey it is argued that academic excellence is not to be equated with dispassionate, liberal objectivity and balance. Instead, I argue for the cultural and epistemological importance of our complexes, and for the transformative personal and intellectual significance of falling in love with Jung. This defence of the complexity of knowing and thinking leads into a discussion of the tricksterlike strategies involved in successfully teaching Jungian psychology, for both the sceptical intellectual elite and the star-struck Jungian lovers need to be seduced into richer, more informed thought. It is concluded that the tensions between analytical psychology and related fields in the social sciences need to be more centrally integrated into the Jungian field itself.     

Type T Personality and the Jungian Classification System

The Type T personality has been described as a personality dimension referring to individual differences in stimulation seeking, excitement seeking, thrill seeking, arousal seeking, and risk taking. This article explores its relationship to the theoretically relevant personality classification system of C. G. Jung, employing the Myers-Briggs Type indicator as a measure of Jungian types. A sample of high-school students was administered the Myers-Briggs and a measure of Type T. Pearson correlations revealed Type T to be significantly related to the Jungian Intuitive and Perceptive types, with the Type T personality being described as intuitive and perceptive. Interpretations of these exploratory findings were offered.     

Type T personality and the Jungian classification system

The Type T personality has been described as a personality dimension referring to individual differences in stimulation seeking, excitement seeking, thrill seeking, arousal seeking, and risk taking. This article explores its relationship to the theoretically relevant personality classification system of C.G. Jung, employing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as a measure of Jungian types. A sample of high-school students was administered the Myers-Briggs and a measure of Type T. Pearson correlations revealed Type T to be significantly related to the Jungian Intuitive and Perceptive types, with the Type T personality being described as intuitive and perceptive. Interpretations of these exploratory findings were offered.     

Is teaching Jung within university possible?: a response to David Tacey

Until recently, Jungian psychology has been suspicious of academia and remained almost exclusively connected with analytical practice. Attempts by analytical psychologists towards a rapprochement have, by and large, failed because they were based either on inappropriate efforts to fit Jung within an unsuitable paradigm of science or on omnipotent expectations that academics accept the Jungian 'wisdom' unquestionably. By distinguishing two different Jungian epistemologies (an open and closed one) it is argued that the emergence of the new paradigm in social and human sciences (based on constructivist and non-essentialist ideas) offers now a unique opportunity to connect the epistemologically open Jung with these new developments in the academy. Thus, Jungians should now face the challenge of open dialogue with academics which can result in mutual benefit.     

The Role of the Ego in Jungian Individuation and Yogacara Buddhism’s Enlightenment

This article explores the Buddhist and Jungian approaches to the role of the ego in overcoming the limited (for Jung) or illusive (for Buddhists) sense of self rooted in ego-consciousness. Even though both Buddhists and Jung turn to the unconscious (for Jung) or the subliminal consciousness (for Buddhists) to overcome the limitations of the ego, their approaches are radically different. The Jungian ego seems to work diligently in order to transcend itself, whereas Buddhists believe that we can bypass the ego’s participation, namely, its rational analysis and interpretation, and can directly access the subliminal consciousness, alaya. In other words, Buddhists see the ego itself as the problem, or obstacle, in the path to Enlightenment whereas Jung ends up relying upon the active ego’s intervention to become the full Self via individuation. Understanding this substantial difference will lead us to reappraise the reciprocal relationship between the ego and the subliminal mind in both the Jungian theory of individuation and Buddhist enlightenment.     

Encounter with the west—From my life and works

This short essay grew out of remarks made by Dr. Rhi, the leading Jungian psychiatrist in Korea, to friends, colleagues, and students at the end of term in 1996 at Union Theological Seminary in New York, where he had been a visiting professor. He shows briefly, succinctly, with that mixture of earnestness and diffidence which characterizes him as a person and as an analyst, what led him to psychiatry as a profession and how his Jungian convictions and understanding brought opposites into easy relationship for him. Shamanism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Christianity come together here. East meets West in that wholeness which Rhi, like Jung before him, holds always before him as both goal and achievement.     

Journal Reviews

A rden , M argaret . (London). 'Freud and Jung'. Free Associations
C arr , C oeli . (U.S.A.). 'Selling the Feminine'. The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal
D avies , M iranda . (London). 'Heroic deeds, manic defence, and intrusive identification: some reflections on psychotherapy with a 16-year old boy'. Journal of Child Psychotherapy
F ordham , M ichael . (London). 'The Jung-Klein hybrid'. Free Associations
G iegerich , W olfgang . 'Killings: psychology's Platonism and the missing link to reality'. Spring
J acoby , M ario . (Zollikon, Switzerland). 'The Psychology of self in Jung and Kohut'. Journal of the British Association of Psychotherapists
N eumann , M icha . (Israel). 'The psychology and psychopathology of the second generation of holocaust survivors'. Zeitschrift für Analytische Psychologie
R eis , P atricia . (U.S.A). 'Female gender trouble: pursuing the perverse with Madonna'. The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Jounal
R oose , J eanine A uger . (Los Angeles). 'The Still Point of the Turning World'. In Mad Parts of Sane People in Analysis
S amuels , A. (London). 'Men Under Scrutiny'. Winnicott Studies
S amuels , A. (London). 'The mirror and the hammer: depth psychology and political transformation'. Commentaries by Figlio, K., Shamdasani, S., Mayers, D. and Papadopoulos, R. with a Reply. Free Associations
W yly , J ames . (Chicago). 'Abstract Art and the Unconscious', Quadrant